“The project was designed to run after the mine closes, so not a problem,” said Auden Schendler, Aspen Skiing’s environmental guru who hatched the plan to harvest methane from the mine and convert it into 24 million kilowatt hours of power, enough to power all of the company’s four ski areas, 13 restaurants and three hotel.

The project – developed by Denver-based Vessels Coal Gas – launched a year ago and united the unlikely partners of Oxbow, one of the world’s largest coal miners, with Aspen Skiing, an international leader in environmentally focused operations. The partnership – funded by Aspen Skiing’s $5.4 million investment – was heralded as the first large-scale methane harvesting project of its kind and elevated an international model for converting methane – which is vented from coal mines and contributes to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – into power.

Oxbow announced Monday it was idling the Elk Creek Mine, which has struggled since a fire that started a year ago has pinched production. The company said it was laying off 115 workers.

“We are not connected with the mine operations,” Schendler said, noting that methane still is vented from the mine cavity regardless of coal production operations. “Bottom line is that we are independent of the mine. We’re sorry for the job losses Oxbow is experiencing but we’re glad that our project is still running.”